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Monday, June 29, 2009

Hawks Free Agency

NBA free agent signing period starts on July 1, 2009, and the Hawks have plenty of holes to fill. Let's start with what the Hawks have:

G: Teague, Crawford, and Joe Johnson (No PG in sight)
SF: Mo Evans
PF: Josh Smith
C: Horford and Randolph Morris

They have those 7 players signed for a grand total of $42.8 million. (Great website for salaries) The salary cap last year was $58.680 million with the tax threshold at $71.150 million. Last year the Hawks salary was at about $69 million. So with the downturn in the economy let's say the Hawks are looking to spend $65 million. So that gives Sund about $22 million to sign about 6-7 players. Out of that 6-7, the Hawks need to sign at least 3 guys that Woody will actually play. Right now we have 5 players we know he will use, one we know he will not (Morris), and one we have no clue about (Teague). So we need at least 3 more guys: a guard (preferably a vet PG), a larger wing player, and a big man.

Hopefully the role of larger wing player will be filled by Marvin, who we'll say will command a salary of about 7-8 million. He'll get less than Josh, so we'll go with 5 years, 40 million to be generous. That will put the Hawks salary at $50.8 million.

The role of vet PG once again will hopefully be filled by Bibby, but there is the concern that he will command too high of a salary, especially if he demands a salary anywhere near the $15 million he made last year. So in the interest of due diligence, let's take a look at the rest of the vet PGs. Andre Miller, Anthony Carter, Tyronn Lue, Brevin Knight, and Juan Dixon. Those are the PGs that aren't too terribly old, and are decent enough to warrant playing time. I will rule out Miller since the Hawks are not an up-tempo team and Miller can't hit a 3 (28% last year). Neither can Knight (I don't think he averaged 1 attempt a game), so he gets eliminated.

So that leaves Carter, who was resurgent last year, but is 34 and not great at the 3; Lue, who is still a fan favorite; and Juan Dixon, who is a gritty guard who is ok at the 3, but is more of a slasher. Based on Woody's offensive system, I would pretty much limit this to the more expensive, more effective Bibby or the cheaper, less effective Lue. I think it's more likely to be Lue at this point.

So should we sign Bibby and leave only 5-7 million to sign at least 4 players including a quality big man, or should we sign Lue and leave 12-13 million for those 4 players? Or are my numbers, especially how much the Hawks are willing to spend, completely off?

Will take a look at the big men in free agency before Wednesday...

3 comments:

thirdfalcon said...

Id say the Hawks can spend a couple of million more than 65 since their revenue went up, in ticket sales, and jerseys etc. even as League wide revenue went down. But that's more speculation.

Id say Bibby won't get anything near 15 million, and will probably make a few million over a third of that. He'll sign for less than Marvin in any case. Which would leave 8 to 11 million for the rest of the team, depending on how much Sund is allowed to spend.

I'd also add Ramone Sessions to your list of possibilities at Point Guard.

Daniel said...

I thought about adding Sessions, but I think the Bucks will match any offer we make. So we'd have to do a sign and trade if we were to get him, and I don't know what assets we have to trade other than future 1s.

Anonymous said...

The only real difference i can think of would be a video camera and maybe more memory. If you jailbreak an iphone dont you get viceo anyway? So other than the camera there isnt much improvement they can make is there?



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